Congress? Who needs Congress? And the Constitution? Forget about it

The employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act contains no provision allowing the president to suspend, delay or repeal it. Section 1513(d) states in no uncertain terms that “The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.” Imagine the outcry if Mitt Romney had been elected president and simply refused to enforce the whole of ObamaCare.

This is not the first time Mr. Obama has suspended the operation of statutes by executive decree, but it is the most barefaced. In June of last year, for example, the administration stopped initiating deportation proceedings against some 800,000 illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before age 16, lived here at least five years, and met a variety of other criteria. This was after Congress refused to enact the Dream Act, which would have allowed these individuals to stay in accordance with these conditions. Earlier in 2012, the president effectively replaced congressional requirements governing state compliance under the No Child Left Behind Act with new ones crafted by his administration.

The president defended his suspension of the immigration laws as an exercise of prosecutorial discretion. He defended his amending of No Child Left Behind as an exercise of authority in the statute to waive certain requirements. The administration has yet to offer a legal justification for last week’s suspension of the employer mandate.

There’s even talk of impeachment, although you know that will go nowhere (see my last post). No one has the stomach to really enforce any rules up there and that goes for both sides. But, as the Constitutional scholar that wrote the above points out, the Constitution pointedly charges the executive with “the faithful enforcement of the law”. In fact it is his or her constitutional duty.

The Supreme Court has been pretty clear on this too.

Of all the stretches of executive power Americans have seen in the past few years, the president’s unilateral suspension of statutes may have the most disturbing long-term effects. As the Supreme Court said long ago (Kendall v. United States, 1838), allowing the president to refuse to enforce statutes passed by Congress “would be clothing the president with a power to control the legislation of congress, and paralyze the administration of justice.”

And that’s pretty much where this is headed. We are being subjected to the arbitrary enforcement of law. The rule of men. In the case of the statutes for ObamaCare, it’s because of politics. That’s why you hear no outraged voiced by Democrats. They will benefit electorally by not having to face the uproar sure to come with it’s implementation should that happen before the 2014 midterms. However, as noted above, if Mitt Romney had been elected and was the one doing this, Democrats would be squealing like stuck Constitutional hogs.

Another recent example of Obama’s arrogance is his “recess that wasn’t a recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. How can anyone have confidence in the rulings of the NLRB when it appears to have been illegally constituted – another arrogant example of ignoring the lines between executive and legislative power. If a board is illegal, how are its rulings enforceable?

These are important questions that demand an answer. Instead, they’re ignored, the corruption and arrogance grows and we’re subjected to arbitrary rule with no check.

If I’m not mistaken, we once based a revolution on those sorts of abuses.

12 Responses to Congress? Who needs Congress? And the Constitution? Forget about it

I think it was Krauthammer or Will who opined that we didn’t really have fascist economics because we didn’t really have a dictator.
That was dead wrong, of course, as to the economics.
We now see it was also wrong on the dictator part.

I particularly like:
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.” and
“He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.”

to whom it may concern:
Yes I looked at the Declaration on-line, please make note of that again on my permanent record would you?

With idiots like Eddie Bernice Johnson suggesting we build a national park on the moon to preserve the landing sites, with administration facilities and ‘visitor services’, I’m not sure we DO need Congress anyway.

And ya know if Eddie J represented Houston I could understand, wasn’t this more in line with something Shelia Jackson Stuart Anderson Ewell Early Johnston Armitage Forrest Hood Pickett Lee would be looking to do?
“Houston you have a problem”